Violence...

Last night as we crawled sleepily into bed, the desperate cries of a mother screaming “My baby” pierced the night from the dirt road running in front of our house. Usually, this cry follows the death of a child. But this seemed different, less forlorn and more desperate. We slipped out into the darkness of our yard and the approaching cries grew louder and more irregular. Within a few moments we could hear the dull thuds of blows raining down on flesh...right across our hedge. We ran out into the street to find a half naked man beating a half naked women in the drainage ditch of the road. Our flashlight sent them scurrying like cockroaches found in the kitchen. But before long, the scuffle resumed...this time with the two having a little tug-of-war with a two year old child in the middle. By now, a dozen or so neighbors had flooded into the street, intervening in the brawl. Even with all these witnesses, the two still continued to randomly attack each other, taking cheap shots. Then the mother snatched the child from a third party who was trying to protect the vulnerable child...and ran down the road. The stunned father just stood there, listening to all the neighbors berate him for his hateful behavior. Surprisingly, alcohol seemed not to be involved. We don’t know this family. Seems they were visiting from a nearby village.

The child above, Mugabe Godwin, a four-year was mentioned by Jennifer in a previous post (Back to Reality). This child was clubbed by a drunken dancer, annoyed with the curious on-looking of a small child. His fractured femur will require at least a couple of months in this rudimentary traction device.

As a Team, we continue to study Kenneth Sande’s The Peacemaker. Peace and reconciliation seem so distant in times like these, but we continue to ask for prayer that peace would break through, that it would flow like a river in this dry and weary land.
-S.